12 Common CLM Pain Points and How They’re Solved

Organizations managing hundreds or thousands of contracts face recurring challenges that drain resources, create compliance risks, and limit value extraction. From fragmented workflows to inadequate analytics, these pain points undermine efficiency across legal, procurement, finance, and sales teams. This guide examines the ten most critical contract lifecycle management challenges and demonstrates how modern, AI-powered solutions like Sirion directly address them. Understanding these obstacles—and their solutions—enables enterprise leaders to make informed decisions when evaluating or optimizing their CLM strategy.

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) is the end-to-end process of creating, negotiating, executing, storing, and monitoring contracts to ensure compliance, risk mitigation, and value realization across the organization. Effective CLM transforms contracts from static documents into strategic assets that drive operational resilience and measurable ROI.

1. Complex Implementation and Onboarding Delays

Enterprise CLM implementations often stretch beyond two months as teams wrestle with intricate workflow configurations, data migration, and system integrations. These extended timelines delay value realization and frustrate users who need immediate access to contract capabilities. Complex setup processes typically require specialized technical expertise, pulling IT and legal resources away from core responsibilities while business units wait for basic functionality.

Streamlined onboarding accelerates time-to-value through user-friendly interfaces, pre-configured templates, and dedicated support teams that guide organizations through initial setup. Platforms designed for rapid deployment minimize disruptions by offering intuitive configuration tools that business users can manage without extensive technical training. When CLM solutions, like Sirion’s, reduce reliance on specialized expertise, organizations achieve faster adoption and can scale their contract operations more efficiently.

2. Permission Management Challenges

As contract volumes grow and organizational structures evolve, managing user access becomes an administrative burden that increases security risk. Tangled permission systems make it difficult to ensure the right people have appropriate access while preventing unauthorized viewing or editing of sensitive agreements. Without clear, auditable controls, organizations face compliance exposure and struggle to maintain data privacy standards required in regulated industries.

Effective permission management in CLM software involves setting access rights for users so that sensitive information and contract actions are controlled and auditable. Modern platforms, like Sirion, automate role assignment based on department, seniority, or contract type, reducing manual administration. Granular user privileges enable organizations to grant specific permissions—view-only, edit, approve, or full admin—while comprehensive audit trails track every access event. Regular staff training on permission protocols ensures teams understand their responsibilities and maintain security without excessive complexity. This balance proves especially critical for organizations subject to GDPR, HIPAA, or other data privacy mandates.

3. Fragmented User Experience Across Tools

When teams must toggle between separate applications for e-signatures, document storage, template libraries, and approval workflows, productivity suffers and adoption rates decline. This fragmentation creates confusion about where to find contracts, which version is current, and what actions remain pending. Each additional tool introduces another login, another interface to learn, and another potential point of failure in the contract process.

Unified platforms that integrate e-signature capabilities, template management, approval routing, and centralized storage within a single system eliminate these switching costs and streamline daily workflows. Enterprise-grade CLM solutions, including Sirion, offer native integrations with tools teams already use—Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams, Salesforce, and major ERP systems—so users can access contract functions without leaving familiar environments. This cohesive experience drives higher adoption rates, reduces training time, and ensures that contract actions happen where work already flows.

4. Integration Gaps With CRM, ERP, and Procurement Systems

CLM platforms rarely operate in isolation, yet many implementations struggle to integrate seamlessly with core enterprise systems like Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, Workday, or procurement suites. When integrations break or require heavy IT involvement, data synchronization suffers—leading to duplicated records, inconsistent contract metadata, and manual re-entry of customer or vendor information. These disconnects cause delays during creation, approvals, forecasting, and renewal processes.

Robust integration frameworks use APIs, pre-built connectors, and event-driven updates to ensure contract data, pricing terms, vendor information, and customer details sync automatically. Modern CLM platforms like Sirion support bi-directional data flows, enabling teams to generate contracts directly from CRM data, push executed terms into ERP for invoicing, and align procurement activity with vendor obligations. Reducing integration friction eliminates redundant work, increases data accuracy, and accelerates contracting cycles from request to renewal.

5. Rigidity in Workflow Modification

Business conditions change rapidly, yet many CLM systems lock workflows once a contract enters the approval process. When a key stakeholder becomes unavailable, when regulatory requirements shift, or when deal terms need urgent revision, rigid systems force teams to cancel and restart entire workflows—wasting time and creating frustration.

Workflow flexibility refers to the ability to adjust contract approval, negotiation, or signature steps mid-process to accommodate real-world business changes. Platforms offering in-flight modifications enable users to add reviewers, skip unnecessary steps, or adjust approval sequences without restarting from scratch. Visual workflow builders let business users design and modify processes through drag-and-drop interfaces rather than requiring developer intervention. Dynamic approval routing automatically adjusts paths based on contract value, risk level, or department, ensuring appropriate oversight without manual intervention.

Flexible workflows:

• Allow mid-process adjustments
• Support visual, no-code builders
• Enable dynamic routing based on contract attributes
• Accommodate urgent business changes

Rigid workflows:

• Require complete restart for any change
• Demand technical expertise for modifications
• Follow fixed approval paths regardless of circumstances
• Create bottlenecks during urgent situations

6. Limited Customization for Unique Needs

Generic CLM solutions force organizations to adapt their processes to fit the software rather than configuring the platform to match proven workflows. This misalignment proves especially problematic in regulated industries or complex procurement environments where standardized approaches fail to address specific compliance requirements, contract types, or approval hierarchies. When customization demands technical expertise for even moderate adjustments, business users remain dependent on IT resources for routine changes.

Organizations evaluating CLM customization capabilities should assess clause libraries that reflect industry-specific language, workflow templates aligned with departmental processes, branding options for customer-facing documents, and integration points that connect to specialized systems. AI-driven configuration takes customization further by personalizing contract language recommendations, configuring alerts based on role-specific priorities, and tailoring reporting dashboards to each function’s key metrics. This level of adaptability ensures the CLM platform becomes a strategic asset rather than a constraint on business operations.

7. Inefficient Document Editing Capabilities

Cumbersome document editing interrupts contract cycles and increases the risk of manual errors that create legal exposure or operational problems. When multiple parties need to review and revise agreements simultaneously, weak editing tools force sequential workflows that extend timelines unnecessarily. Version confusion compounds these challenges when teams cannot easily identify which draft is current or what changes occurred between iterations.

Document management encompasses the creation, editing, version control, storage, and retrieval of contracts within a centralized system. Essential features include inline editing that allows direct changes within the CLM platform, comprehensive version history that tracks every modification with timestamps and user attribution, real-time collaboration enabling simultaneous editing by multiple parties, document locking that prevents conflicting changes, and detailed audit trails that record all document access and alterations. These capabilities support best practices for legal review and clause standardization, reducing risk while accelerating contract finalization.

8. Inadequate Reporting and Analytics

Limited reporting capabilities make it nearly impossible to analyze contract risk, monitor performance against commitments, or identify renewal opportunities before deadlines pass. Without visibility into contract data, organizations cannot optimize spend, ensure compliance, or extract strategic value from their agreements. Research indicates that organizations often experience an 8.6% value erosion during the contract lifecycle due to missed obligations and inadequate performance monitoring—a significant financial impact that robust analytics can prevent.

CLM analytics are insights generated from contract data, helping organizations monitor obligations, uncover risk, and optimize spend. Comprehensive reporting dashboards should track upcoming renewals with sufficient lead time for renegotiation, monitor obligation fulfillment to prevent penalties or service failures, analyze spend patterns to identify cost reduction opportunities, display compliance status across contract portfolios, and detect clause deviations that create unintended risk exposure. These analytics transform contracts from static documents into dynamic sources of business intelligence that inform strategic decisions.

9. High Costs and Pricing Complexity

Modular pricing structures can lead to unplanned expenses when organizations discover that essential features require premium tiers or additional licenses. Without transparent pricing and a clear understanding of total cost of ownership, budget overruns become common as implementations progress. Beyond license fees, hidden costs emerge from integration requirements, extensive training needs, custom development for basic functionality, and premium charges for advanced analytics or reporting.

Evaluating CLM value requires assessing not just initial costs but the long-term ROI delivered through enterprise-grade security, automation that eliminates manual tasks, compliance capabilities that prevent penalties, and comprehensive user support that maximizes adoption. Scalable licensing models that grow with organizational needs prevent over-purchasing while ensuring capacity for expansion. Clear ROI metrics—such as reduced cycle times, lower contract leakage, and improved compliance rates—help large organizations justify investment and measure ongoing value delivery.

10. Insufficient AI Support for Automation

Despite widespread AI marketing claims, many users report that AI features in CLM tools often fall short of expectations, requiring significant manual intervention to achieve promised results. Superficial automation that handles only simple tasks or produces unreliable outputs creates frustration rather than efficiency gains. When AI capabilities lack transparency or explainability, legal and procurement teams cannot trust recommendations for critical contract decisions.

AI in contract lifecycle management automates data extraction, clause detection, obligation tracking, and risk analysis to reduce bottlenecks and improve accuracy. Evaluating genuine AI usefulness requires examining contract extraction precision across diverse document formats, automatic tagging accuracy for contract types and clauses, obligation reminder reliability for critical deadlines, anomaly detection that identifies unusual terms or risks, and explainable recommendations that show reasoning behind AI suggestions. Organizations should prioritize solutions like Sirion with proven track records rather than platforms offering unproven AI add-ons as marketing differentiators.

11. Steep Learning Curve and User Adoption

Unintuitive interfaces and complex navigation create major barriers to CLM adoption, especially for non-legal users or team members who interact with contracts infrequently. When systems demand extensive training before users can complete basic tasks, adoption rates suffer, and organizations fail to realize their CLM investment. Frequent product updates that significantly change interfaces can overwhelm users, impacting both repository usability and reporting functionality as teams struggle to relearn workflows.

Best practices for accelerating user adoption include guided onboarding programs that walk users through common scenarios, role-based dashboards that present relevant functions and data for each user type, in-app help and contextual guidance that answers questions without leaving the platform, adaptive user training that adjusts to proficiency levels, and ongoing support through multiple channels. Organizations should track adoption KPIs including time-to-first-contract completion, training hours required to reach proficiency, and user satisfaction ratings gathered through regular feedback. These metrics identify adoption obstacles early and enable targeted interventions that improve CLM utilization across the enterprise.

Understanding how CLM can benefit legal teams helps organizations design training and change management programs that address specific departmental concerns and demonstrate value in terms each function understands.

12. Siloed Adoption Across Departments

Many CLM programs fail not because of technology shortcomings, but due to uneven adoption across legal, procurement, finance, and sales. When only one department actively uses the CLM while others continue operating through email or spreadsheets, contract data becomes fragmented, workflows stall, and the platform fails to deliver promised ROI. Siloed usage also limits visibility into obligations, renewals, and risk because key actions occur outside the system.

Driving enterprise-wide adoption requires structured onboarding plans for each function, role-based training tailored to department needs, and clear process ownership to ensure contracts consistently flow through the CLM. Integrated inboxes, guided workflows, and contextual help reduce friction for occasional users, while dashboards show function-specific metrics to highlight value. Organizations that measure adoption KPIs—like percentage of contracts initiated in the CLM or cycle time by department—can identify lagging groups early and intervene before workflows break.

Sirion: AI-Powered Contract Lifecycle Management

Sirion delivers an enterprise-grade CLM platform designed specifically for regulated industries that demand precision, security, and scalability. The platform combines intelligent contract extraction with real-time analytics and advanced automation to support cross-functional teams in legal, procurement, finance, and sales. By centralizing contracts in a single repository and applying AI to extract obligations, deadlines, and risk indicators, Sirion eliminates manual bottlenecks and ensures audit readiness.

The platform’s compliance automation capabilities enforce pre-approved language, track regulatory requirements, and maintain comprehensive audit trails—essential features for organizations in healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing. Seamless integration with existing ERP and CRM systems means teams can access contract data without switching contexts or duplicating efforts. Recognized in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant, Sirion has demonstrated measurable outcomes, including faster cycle times, reduced contract leakage, and improved operational resilience. This AI-driven approach directly addresses the pain points outlined above, offering a benchmark for what modern CLM should deliver.

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